Since Mid-January

Sometimes it takes a lot of little things to make you realize something very huge in your life. I have a number of those little things add up to a large realization just yesterday evening. 

It has been since mid-January since I last post and honestly it feels like this is the first time I am coming up for air since that time. It has felt like the last few months have been about keeping my head down and moving through one major event onto the next major event with the scenes from Finding Nemo going through my head of "just keep swimming just keep swimming."

This all started in October when Husband went off work. My first reaction internally was sheer panic - how are we going to manage how are things going to work. He had some sick time (about a month) but honestly at that point I already had a pretty good feeling this would be something longer. Plus there was a realization that Husband was to have surgery that was also going to need a month post-op recovery before he could be back to work. Read absolute panic but I had to put those feelings aside and deal with the practicalities of getting him sorted out with doctors, dealing with his union, work, insurance claims, medical forms. I knew he needed help and I needed help to support him so I called his parents - that brought us to Mid-January were it felt like things were starting to be a mucked-up level of ok-ness - I knew that things were going to take a while to figure out but at least the uncertainty was a known quantity if that made sense. 

Lucille Loiselle
1924 - 2019

I was getting ready to leave for a short night trip when I got a call from my Mom saying I needed to come get them that minute as they got a call that my grandmother wasn't doing well. We rushed to see her and she was sitting there perfectly fine and very confused about why we had rushed to see her but she said she was ready. So I went on a work trip out of town for just two nights away - it was the first time I was leaving husband since he went off work and I was concerned and worried about how he would do - but I had a plan in place and I was confident in that plan. Snap to the second night of the trip I get back to the hotel from supper and the pain set in - sheer agony. I ended up in the hospital and had to call a co-worker in the middle of the night to come out to finish the work trip and bring the husband to drive me home. Less than two days after getting back from the work trip we got another urgent call from my mom again that they needed a ride to see my Memere and this time I knew it would be different. 

I picked up my parents and off we went - I dropped them and husband off at the front door and found a place to park. I knew - I knew before we left the house, before we got to the home where she had been living, before I got off the elevator that she had gone. She had said less than a week before she was ready and it was her time. It's funny the things you remember about a person but from her I remember her determination and strength. When something was to be done it was done so when she said she was ready and it was her time I knew that she would have her way. (I also remember having Christmas presents wrapped up inside old milk cartons; her kitchen; learning to eat tomatoes just like apples; being in the garden at the farm).  We set about the business of calling and notifying family, packing her possessions. Much like when my other grandparents passed I focused on putting my head down and getting through the things that needed to be done.

Before you knew it January was over and we were into February which brings us into the months of Birthdays. First badly planning my daughter's 13th birthday. Ok - well I feel bad but apparently they kids thought it was a hit - but on my end I felt like a failure because I was emailing or texting parents literally days before the date to say please let your kid come so I don't feel like a failure. The monkey the effervescent creature she is never blinked an eye and had no doubt that her party would be amazing - I still feel like a crappy mom. 

This was all while helping plan and execute my Dad's surprise 65th Birthday (which of course means getting to make fantastic cupcakes - Dark Chocolate Raspberry; Lemon meringue Pie and a GF Spice cake with cream cheese frosting). The party was held on my husband's birthday as the decoy for what was actually going on. 

All of this is going on while I am under significant pressure at work and we are still working through the process of husband going through sick leave, short term disability, long term disability and insurance claims. He has had doctors appointments every two weeks on top of counsellor appointments and specialist appointments. He has been in such a bad spot that to say it was like having another child in the house is accurate. I had to ensure that he was eating, taking his medication, changing his clothes, showering and taking basic care of himself. 

Unfortunately this meant that in the shuffle I literally had to run to the store with the husband and monkey in tow to buy husband's birthday card because I had forgotten - it is hard to know and feel like you have failed your family because you are so terribly overwhelmed that you have forgotten to get our husband and daughter birthday cards. Their presents were handled with them in tow as well and I still feel like crap over it (I still have my Mom's birthday present from January 1st at home to give her... sorry Mom) 

On the way home from buying a birthday card for my husband we decided to stop for fun to see the animals at the Winnipeg Humane Society - never really thinking that we would actually find one, fall in love and adopt.  nevertheless that is exactly what happened - we went into just look at two dogs that were cute but we weren't set on when a worker walks by holding this wiggling pile of fur! That was it we were done for. When I heard her story I was heart broken but also felt an instant connection. She had been adopted out several weeks before by a couple who had had another dog and they returned her that very day, the day we happened to randomly go in, because they were moving and couldn't keep *her* anymore. She had been rejected and returned. 

To say that she saved my husband is a complete and total understatement. It would be like saying that the universe isn't really that much bigger than Winnipeg. The change in him has been significant. I still find myself completely overwhelmed though with my commitments and I often have felt like I am failing at everything that I am doing. Between feeling like a failure at work, trying to not let anything else fall between the cracks at home, and my other personal commitments where I likewise feel like I am feeling it has been a hard run and I am facing at least another month of of the same feeling that "this month is just a marathon - I just have to get to the end of the month" 

this has lead me to have a number of thoughts and a major realization this week - but more on that tomorrow - for now a few cute puppy pictures.